Why We LOVE Trellises!

Trellis. 

Trellises. 

Such a fun word to say, isn’t it? 

We love these organic gardening rockstars because trellises help maximize your grow area by giving climbing varieties, like cucumbers and pole beans, a sturdy vertical framework to climb.

This efficient use of vertical space frees up a TON of horizontal area in your garden for plants that don’t need a trellis - edible varieties like lettuces, spinach, kale, eggplant, and peppers.

 

And if building your own raised garden beds offers a fun on opportunity to let your creative side shine a little bit, then making trellises is your chance to really get clever, and make an organic garden showstopper.

Bamboo. Wire fencing. Repurposed concrete reinforcing mesh. Wrought iron. PVC pipe.

You can make a garden trellis with just about anything, and the sky is both the objective and the limit when it comes to making garden trellises.

Now, since our niche here at Microfarm is building garden projects like raised beds with red cedar, we prefer to build our own trellis designs with this same durable material.

But make no mistake ; we absolutely love seeing all the creative trellis making out there. From ‘Whimsical’ and ‘shabby chic’ to ‘stately’ and ‘elegant’ . 

And everything in between.

We especially love trellises, obelisks, arbors, and other garden structures made with woven branches or vines. Those are super cool and unique.

 

But since our raised garden beds are made with rough sawn red cedar, we like to keep it simple and make our trellis designs with this same hardy and beautiful material.

That delivers both the high aesthetic standard, and the needed consistency. This also yields the robust strength required to support heavy wind, snow, and ice loads - along with whatever plant variety that a customer chooses to put the strength of our cedar trellis to the test.

 

Our cedar trellises can be either built into our raised garden bed designs - usually with a 2”x4” or 4”x4” outer frame, fitted with 1”x1” cedar strips - spaced about 7” apart.

Or, our cedar trellises can be mounted onto the outside of existing cedar garden beds, using high-strength structural steel screws.

 

And occasionally, we’ve made simple cedar trellis designs that can be pushed right down into the raised bed’s organic soil, and removed seasonally to be cleaned and stored.

But the wonderful thing about trellises is that they can be SO much more than just a vertical growing frame for plants.

Trellises are frequently used to create tasteful privacy screens, and cozy ambience in places that feel too exposed.

 

For example, we made a raised garden bed with a 6’-tall built-in, cedar trellis to help shade an outdoor grill station -and make it feel a little more cozy, too.

One of our fun, geometric cedar trellis designs we will give a star jasmine plant the room it’ll need to spread out - and give the homeowner just the right touch of privacy in her backyard until that new jasmine plant hits is stride.

 

We’ve built and installed cedar planters with trellises to help screen back-up generators and swimming pool equipment - in addition to giving garden plants room to ramble vertically.

 

One project required fitting three of our Terrace Garden cedar planters with 6’-tall trellises to create a tasteful and neighborly -yet very much-needed - buffer between two adjoining driveways. Annual or perennial plants will only add beauty to this sturdy privacy screen, which already substantially softens the exposed feel of the adjoining driveways.

A 6’-tall, 20’ wide cedar trellis mounted onto the back side of three of our 4’x8’ Kitchen garden raised beds subtly removed the ‘fishbowl’ feel of a customer’s deck -  and it gives vining edible garden plants a vast framework to show off their climbing skills.

 

Are you interested in a cedar trellis for your raised garden beds? These can be built in our workshop, to your size specs, and anchored onto your raised beds.

And if you’re still just dreaming of having an organic garden of your own one day - imagining how it might look, and where it could go on your property - consider a cedar garden bed with a built in trellis.

That may be just what you need to make the dream come true.